The following is from the officers and Executive Board of Local 506 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, which represents production workers at GE Transportation's plant in Lawrence Park Township.

Despite apprehension that we cannot change the outcome of GE Transportation’s decision to abandon Erie, we must do our level best to try, so today we choose to enter into decision bargaining with GE for the fourth time in as many years.

At UE we feel that we have an obligation to preserve and protect the jobs of our members. We do that each time we enter into a contract negotiation or decision bargaining. We do that each day a displaced member walks through our doors hoping to navigate the unemployment system or just looking for a ray of hope. We will negotiate for our members.

A Parker Philips economic impact study released earlier this week shows that GE’s further withdrawal from its Lawrence Park plant will generate multibillion-dollar economic losses to Erie County and Pennsylvania, and create a ripple effect through the job market, leaving thousands of non-GE jobs on the chopping block. The assessment was a grim peek at our economy on the brink.

We choose this path with an enormous pressure to achieve results that it seems are unachievable. We make this decision under the shadow of seven decision bargaining periods that have not yielded long-term commitments to Erie and always resulted in the intended job transfers playing out as the company initially intended. That means today we will enter into a negotiation to save 572 jobs that in all likelihood are already heading to Texas and third-party vendors.

UE signed an agreement with GE less than a year ago, in November, that resulted in major improvements in productivity, efficiency and delivery. UE held up its end of the bargain. Relationships with plant managers, in particular the executive plant manager, an Erie native, were generating optimism among our leadership team and the ranks. This latest job transfer really caught us by surprise.

Why is the company that has already made a decision to move these jobs so motivated to sit across the table from us? The dynamic of decision bargaining looks much like a classic cycle of abuse. Much like when an abuser shifts blame for poor behavior to his victim: “Why did you make me hit you?” GE has successfully blamed UE members for a decision made in a corporate board room years ago. “We wouldn’t move jobs if only UE didn’t make us.” It’s death by a thousand cuts and it’s time for our members, Erie County and Pennsylvania to stand up for ourselves.

Shifting accountability to UE members for a long-planned move away from Erie can’t hide huge and measurable GE profits produced by Erie workers. It doesn’t protect our fellow GE employees working in management positions who are also losing their jobs. Shifting accountability for a cycle of abuse also won’t protect America, as GE ships more and more of our jobs overseas.

We enter the next 60 days calloused by years of this same cycle and knowing that our community is counting on us. We thought long and hard about channeling our time and energy away from this negotiation, and focusing on working hand in hand with leaders like Erie County Executive Kathy Dahlkemper, who is busy creating an initiative to market our highly skilled generational workforce to other companies looking to build the next generation of American goods. We choose what we hope is best for Erie.

We are choosing to negotiate for our members, our community, our friends and our families. UE 506 members stand alongside our fellow community members as coaches, firefighters, benefit organizers, PTA members, and volunteers who make Erie such a special place to call home. We’re doing this for our buddy who hasn’t ever felt the security of a good-paying, family-supporting union job with benefits. For our high school classmates who have wept over losing their homes; our friends and families who have counseled us through the losses; and for our children who may never understand the role GE once played in Erie. But for them on this day, as every day, we will do our best.

The Parker Philips study also assessed the emotional toll to the region as, in addition to the job transfers, today more than 1,700 UE members are displaced. “It would seem that GE and UE Local 506 both still want to work together to mitigate these losses and meaningfully continue their work together. To quote the Rolling Stones, “You can't always get what you want.” In this case they may be right.

But, still we persist and here’s what we want: honest, good-faith negotiations, with an opportunity to influence the outcome and preserve Erie jobs. A contractual, long-term commitment from GE to our members, Erie County and its residents.